#전시

On the 18th, I went to the Lee Kun-hee Collection special exhibition at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. I’d heard about the exhibition last year and had been meaning to go. Part of the appeal was the incredible collection of works gathered in one place, but honestly, what I wanted most was a photo of myself at the entrance, next to an exhibition title with my name in it. And I accomplished what I came to do. Everyone said getting a reservation was difficult, but I found it easier than I expected. The harder part was having to book two weeks ahead, which meant fixing a plan in my schedule that far in advance. I like spending my breaks without a plan (not that I’m especially meticulous about planning the rest of the time, either...), and I tend to deal with things as soon as they come up. Two weeks felt like forever. Fortunately, I managed to wait it out and finally set foot in the gallery. The exhibition title sharing my name was a big part of what drew me in, but I was genuinely interested in the art, too. Besides, I really didn’t want to be someone who just went around taking pictures, so I decided to take my time and look closely at each painting. Because of COVID, the docent guide was available through a mobile app rather than a separate device. It had explanations of about two minutes each for around twenty works. Allowing time to look beyond the explanations, not to mention the works without guides, I figured I’d need at least two hours. My reservation said 3:00 to 4:00, but I assumed that was just a formality. How could they possibly keep track of when every visitor entered and make them leave on time? So I was taking my time with the works when I noticed that the other visitors seemed to be approaching things very differently. They’d snap a few photos in front of a work, then hurry on to the next. Watching them, I felt like I’d found people who cared more about having a photo of themselves in front of the art than appreciating the art itself. To be honest, it didn’t sit well with me. Before long, though, I realized I was the foolish one. At exactly four o’clock, a staff member at the side of the gallery began ushering people out. I took out the earbuds I’d been wearing to listen to the guide and asked again, partly because I couldn’t believe it. Yes, I had to leave so the next group could come in. Unless I’d booked multiple time slots, whether over several hours or several days, I’d have had to hurry through like the others to see every painting. In the end, I left feeling as though I’d been chased out. It was my fault for being so casual about such a popular exhibition. I’d asked a passerby to take my photo in front of the gallery before I went in, and suddenly I felt bad about that, too. See you again next time... It was right there on the sticker they told us to put on the backs of our hands. How did I miss it? I didn’t even get to see twenty works, but of the ones I saw, a few stood out: Lee Sang-beom, <High Mountains, Long Rivers> Byeon Gwan-sik, <Spring Colors of Muchang> — This place, where we quietly live our lives, is paradise. Kim Jung-hyun, <Farmers’ Music> Chang Ucchin, <Playing Gonggi> Those were the ones I especially liked. I still want to see all the works, so I made another reservation for early February and decided to go back with a friend. I’ll be a bit more strategic about it this time. I’ll update this post after I go.

Visited on January 9. The garden in front of the Leeum Museum of Art M1 Second floor Kim Hong-do, Gathering of Immortals, 1776. A painting of immortals by Kim Hong-do! It was a far cry from the scenes of everyday life I was used to seeing from him, but the lively expressions on his characters’ faces were unmistakable and made it a pleasure to look at. In the central group, one immortal rides backward on a horse, absorbed in a book, while another diligently measures something with a ruler. The servant beside him looks grumpy, perhaps because his load is heavy. The bat flying off to one side is worth a look, too. I had the same thought when I saw Shin Saimdang’s paintings of magpies and sparrows: how could they depict animals so accurately in an age without photographs? Bats aren’t exactly animals you see every day, either. Gilt-bronze Standing Buddha. I had often seen this statue in textbooks, but it struck me differently in person because I noticed the folds in the Buddha’s robes—something I hadn’t fully appreciated in photographs. The loose fabric hangs beneath the raised arm and drapes over thighs that protrude slightly beyond the torso. That delicate rendering suddenly reminded me of marble sculptures I had seen while traveling in Europe. I remember being astonished by the way they portrayed skin and thin cloth. I wouldn’t say this Gilt-bronze Standing Buddha is their equal in scale or intricacy, but it felt good simply to find a work in Korea that brought them to mind. Tokujin Yoshioka, Water Block, 2002. It’s neither an antique nor a Korean work, but because it takes the form of a bench where visitors can sit and rest, it stands in the middle of M1’s first floor. A thick glass block with a rippling surface rests on a simple stainless-steel frame. As the description says, it looks like ice without a single air bubble, giving it a wonderfully cool feel. M2 Perhaps I haven’t yet developed the eye to appreciate abstract art, but most contemporary works I like depict real objects, or at least evoke them. The only work I’ve ever found thrilling without connecting it to any recognizable concept was a Mark Rothko painting I saw in middle school. So none of the works I discuss below should be so difficult that I can’t begin to make sense of their intent. Mark Rothko, Ochre and Red on Red, 1954. Second floor Byron Kim, Deep Night. I’m recording this work in particular because it looks so much like a photo I took of the night sky. In my photo, which I once posted on Instagram , the cloud in the center looks almost like the Milky Way. There’s no cloud or little star beside it in Byron Kim’s painting, but looking at the bare winter branches and the blue of the open night sky between them, I suspect he felt something much like I did. A photo I took. Bae Young-whan, Pop Song—Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, 2007. Beyond the bars, a video of young people playing in the water at a distant beach is projected, while Bob Dylan’s <Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door> plays in the background. The video is black and white, and dense bars stand between me and them. Their happiness feels very far away. Though I lack little in my own life, they seem to possess something I don’t. The languid song even makes me wonder whether what I’m seeing is real, or perhaps a dream. If I could catch a brief glimpse of heaven, might it look something like this? It’s interesting that I can relate to the artist’s depiction of heaven, a world no living person has experienced. It’s not as though I’ve acquired a concrete idea of heaven through religion. Even more intriguing is that I felt something very similar in a work from another culture: the music video for <Afterlife> by the Canadian band Arcade Fire. If you haven’t seen it, go watch it. I don’t think the band is particularly well known in Korea, and I came across this one song by chance. I liked the song itself, but the video made me love it even more. The story. The father sells flowers by the roadside. He doesn’t seem especially good at it. He holds up bouquets and gestures to passing cars, but they simply speed by. After a hard day, he has dinner with his two sons. Their mother is nowhere to be seen. In the silence, they exchange a few short, dry words. The older son asks his father what he did that day, suggesting that the father has no regular job and that they don’t talk often. After the quiet meal, the three men go to sleep separately. Their dreams give form to the longings left unfulfilled by the absence of a wife and mother. The younger son finds himself in a laundromat. An unfamiliar woman puts him in a cart and wheels him away, then stuffs him into a washing machine and shuts the lid. Terrified inside the machine, which looks ready to start spinning at any moment, he finally wakes up. He goes to his sleeping father and tries to fall asleep again beside him. Only there does he find the comfort of being held by his mother. The older son, in fact, has secretly gone to a friend’s party instead of sleeping. But he can’t let loose there either; he lies down in a field and falls asleep. In his dream, he walks down a corridor past girls his own age, paying them little attention. Farther on, he reaches a courtyard where a group who appear to be a family are gathered around a swimming pool for a child’s baptism. He approaches the pool, but high fences enclose it on every side, leaving him no choice but to watch the ceremony from outside. The father’s dream is more distorted still. Passing through a strange space of leaning streetlights and scattered construction materials, he heads to an underground ballroom. Couples dance in the spacious room, while a woman stands mot